Abstract
Canada’s parents/grandparents (PGP) immigration program was revised dramatically by the government in 2014 with three main changes: 1) the length of sponsor’s undertaking changed from10 years to 20 years; 2) the sponsor must meet the minimum income requirement for three consecutive years rather than previously only one year; and 3) a maximum number of applications that can be accepted was added to the program. Through in-depth interviewing sponsored parents and sponsor children, as well as community leaders and social workers, my cross-sectional qualitative study research project unfolds a comprehensive picture of the lives of older Chinese immigrants in Canada. Drawing on governmentality literature, especially Foucauldian government of the self, neo-liberalism, biopolitics and Donzelot’s “government through the family”, I examine the program and analyze reasons and implications of the policy changes. My findings reveal the design of the program, especially its enforced dependency/undertaking clause has negatively affected the life of the sponsored parents and their well-being. I argue the State utilizes the immigration program as a governance tool to distinguish its subjects as the “desirable” and the “undesirable” and transfers its responsibility to the shoulders of the unwanted immigrants such as sponsored older parents and their families by privatizing social responsibility and promoting and forging self-reliance and self-governed subjects. I argue the design of PGP immigration program and its changes indicate Canada’s immigration regime remains structurally raced, gendered, classed, and may be intertwined with other stigmatizing dynamics such as ageism, ableism, ethnocentrism etc. within the State’s power relation system.
Presenters
Ivy LiPhD Candidate, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Parents/Grandparents Immigration Program, Neoliberal Governmentality, Older Immigrants Wellbeing, Social Justice
